


Kings Among Runaways

by MaryPSue



Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: And a lot of swearing, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Stanchez Summer Sizzle, for the fajitas - alternate universes prompt, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 16:25:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11383953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: The only good things about Glass Shard Beach are Ford, and the boats, and Carla McCorkle's hotpants, and maybe the boardwalk. And, sometimes, Rick.The only other good thing about Glass Shard Beach is putting it in the rearview mirror.





	Kings Among Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> So there’s this Stanchez Summer Sizzle thing going on on tumblr, and I’ve been meaning to write something for this ship for forever, so it was a good excuse to actually make the thing. This is partly inspired by the Decemberists’ “On The Bus Mall” (I know, so punk) and partly by Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys and ended up being sort of absolutely nothing like either of them. 
> 
> Sort of falls under the prompt for alternate universes. Contains a little bit of non-graphic NSFW - they get their hands down each other’s pants but that’s about as far as it goes - and Rick-typical casual homophobia and use of slurs. Any errors, inaccuracies, or just plain unbelievabilities about the lives and habits of a couple of shithead teenage boys are entirely due to my being the kind of person who listens to the Decemberists.

The poster is crisp and bright, sticking out against the ones plastered over the wall behind it, greyed and faded and weather-worn practically into tissue paper. It leaps out at Stan's eye, grabs him by the shoulders and spins him around without warning. The picture under the bold-face all-caps MISSING is dark, the image grainy, like something clipped from a newspaper. The face that emerges out of it is pale and defiant, eyes staring sullenly out from under a single furrowed eyebrow, one lip curling upwards in something that bears only the faintest, grimmest resemblance to a smile.

It's not the face, Stan catches himself thinking, of someone who wants to be found.

He can't decide if he's disappointed or relieved not to see his own face next to it.

"Eugh, they used that old yearbook photo?" Rick laughs, lurching to a stop when he notices Stan isn't beside him. "Shit, was I - was I ever that ugly?"

"Still are," Stan says, but his heart's not in it.

Rick elbows him in the ribs and then slings an arm around his shoulders, easy, like it doesn't mean anything. "Good thing we're heading out tonight, then," he says, steering Stan away from the wall of posters and flyers, from his own face. "Don't wanna make this - this - this town look at my ugly mug for too long."

"Shouldn't we take it down or something?" Stan asks, glancing back over his shoulder. He's not sure why. He doesn't look back, much, these days.

Rick doesn't bother with a backwards glance. "Nahhhh," he says, after a beat. There's a hint of snarl in his voice, a sarcastic curl that's a little tighter than usual, when he says, "It's - it's not _me_ they’re looking for. C'mon."

The poster's gaze follows them down the street, accusing.

...

Glass Shard Beach High School was beyond the ability of the most skilled shit-talker to come up with an appropriate insult. The place was a hole, a dump, a wreck, a flaming shitpile. A quitting English teacher, school legend held, had once described it as 'like Lord of the Flies but less inspiring of hope for the future of humanity'. 

Ford loved it. Stan didn't have any idea why.

The only redeeming features of Glass Shard Beach High, as far as Stan was concerned, were the (badly outdated, but still-functional) weight room and Carla 'Hotpants' McCorkle, who'd once let Stan talk her into going to a movie with him and making out in the alley afterwards. He didn't remember which movie. He'd been too busy trying to cop a feel through Carla's crop top and accidentally dunking his entire hand into her ice-cold Coke instead.

Since the weight room'd been closed down (because of 'black mold'; Stan would believe Glass Shard Beach High would close down an otherwise-functional room because of black mold when they finally cordoned off the east wing math room) and Carla'd hooked up with some mopey long-haired loser who wore ratty flannel and looked like he'd just wandered in off a construction site, there wasn't really anything keeping Stan hanging around. Oh, sure, Ford complained about Stan 'playing hooky', but he wasn't gonna be the one to rat Stan out to their pa, and it wasn't like Stan's grades were good enough for it to actually matter if he missed a couple classes here and there. Wasn't like he was going anywhere fast anyway.

That was how he'd met Rick.

...

The Stanleymobile's been running a little rough lately, taking too long to start. Stan has to wrench the key three times in the ignition before her whine turns into a throaty rumble, the floor buzzing and rattling under his feet.

"You could -" he starts, and Rick reaches over, turns the radio up until it drowns Stan out, kicks his feet up on the dash and cranks his seat all the way back.

"Wake me up when we get to California," his voice echoes up from somewhere near the backseat.

Stan reaches over, yanks the knob until he can hear his own voice over the blare of guitar. "You asshole, you coulda just said you don't wanna science my baby's engine instead of makin' me deaf."

"Last time I touched your - your 'baby's' engine you decked me."

"Because I didn't ask you to try to turn it into a _bong_!"

Stan's not sure how Rick manages to shrug while lying down with both arms folded behind his head. "You just said, 'Go nuts'."

"Yeah, well, my mistake," Stan grumbles. "From now on I'll tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Bet you'll just love that."

"Depends," Rick's voice floats up from the backseat. "Are - are - are we naked in this hypothetical future?"

Stan ignores him.

"Next stop, California," he says, and kicks the Stanleymobile into gear.

...

If Stan wasn't flunking English, maybe he'd be tempted to get poetic about Rick. He could probably go on and on, about how the guy seemed to be made out of elbows and broken bottles, thin as a knifeblade and just as sharp-edged. He could probably make up some flowery bullshit about Rick's spindly fingers and how - elegant, there was no other word for it, they looked holding a stolen cigarette, like some silent film starlet decked out in velvet and diamonds, glowing silver through the celluloid. He could spew some purple prose about the way Rick was always either in constant, frantic motion or absolutely still, like he was the fixed point the entire universe turned around. He might even be able to string together words to talk about the wrench in his gut when Rick gave him that rare, knife-edge smile, the one that meant trouble, the one that meant, good or bad, that Stan was about to get a particularly heart-thumping reminder that he was still alive.

Maybe. If Stan wasn't flunking English.

They never did much more than dick around, smoking when they could bum or steal cigarettes, breaking into the old cannery plant or the pool to hang out, getting stoned, lighting the occasional fire, running away from people who didn't want them hanging around wherever they were hanging around. It was still the best time Stan had ever had. Rick expected nothing from him, but it didn't feel - crushing, like it did coming from his dad and Ford. 

It felt kinda like freedom.

...

Ford was waiting outside of the classroom when Stan came running down the hall, his arms crossed over his chest, fingers drumming impatiently against his arm and a scowl on his face.

"Where have you been?" he snapped, as Stan slowed to a halt, trying to get his breathing under control. "The exam's been over for twenty minutes. I was just about to start walking home."

"Class," Stan gasped, sucking in a breath. He'd really just run in from the smoke pit behind the machine shop, and he knew Ford knew that, knew Ford could smell the smoke and engine grease on him. He wasn't lying to Ford. He was lying _for_ Ford. That way when their dad caught Stan, Ford could say that he didn't know, that Stan told him he'd been in class, and he wouldn't have to lie. Ford always had been a lousy liar.

Besides, it wasn't like anybody cared where Stan was anyway.

Ford's eyes slid closed, and he exhaled a long-suffering sigh. "Let's go," he said, stepping away from the wall and brushing past Stan as he started down the hallway. "I've already wasted enough time, the science fair is coming up fast and I should've started studying a quarter of an hour ago."

"Sorry," Stan muttered. "Woulda been here sooner, but -"

"Save it," Ford said, and Stan snapped his mouth shut, glaring at the back of Ford's head. He really would've been back sooner, but for some reason Rick hadn't been at any of their usual haunts, not in the scrubby patch of trees at the park or the alley behind the gas station on Main or even the pool, though Stan hadn't actually expected to find him there, now it was summer and the pool actually had water - and people - in it. Stan hadn't realised how much time had passed until he'd stopped by the machine shop to see if he could at least score any swag for the Stanleymobile so the afternoon wasn't a complete waste, and the bell for the end of class had gone off.

"Sheesh, Sixer, get a life," Stan muttered, to the back of Ford's head, scuffing the heel of his sneaker along the hallway linoleum. The rubber made an awful squeal and left a long, black mark, just like Stan had secretly, viciously hoped it would. "You waste every waking moment studying, one day you're gonna wake up and there'll be nothing left of you but books."

Ford sniffed, dismissively. “Maybe then you’d bother to actually get acquainted with one.”

Stan opened his mouth to snipe back, but then shook his head and bit it back. “Whatever. Let’s just go home.”

...

They don’t make it to California that night, of course. Stan pulls in at a shitty motel off the freeway just on the edge of Columbus, Ohio, just about smack-dab under a huge cloverleaf exchange. The roar of traffic bleeds through the sickly salmon-coloured cinderblock walls as though they’re paper.

Rick starts stripping almost the instant that Stan slams the flimsy door behind them, shucking his leather jacket and tugging off his tank top almost aggressively, like he’s daring Stan to make something of it. Usually, Stan would take him up on the dare, but he’s burnt out exhausted and can’t bring himself to do anything but flop, flat on his back, on top of the weird plasticky cover on one of the beds. There's a big, long crack in the ceiling, stretching out from the window that looks out over the parking lot and the scrub of dead, yellowed grass that fills the ditch between the motel and the highway. The paint around the crack has bubbled and warped, stained yellow and brown. Stan wonders if that's where the faint musty smell under all the stale cigarette smoke is coming from.

The crack runs right overtop of the bed where Stan's lying. He considers it for a moment, decides they're probably gonna want to sleep in the other bed.

“Youknow they don’t _uhhhh_ wash those, right?” Rick points out, eyeing the cover Stan’s lying on without any particular venom. “You're lying in basically a petri dish.”

Stan manages a grunt in response. He never would’ve guessed that sitting for eight solid hours could make his back hurt so much.

Rick vanishes into the bathroom, emerges about ten minutes later after a chorus scored for rattling pipes and off-key voice. “We’re ordering a, a pizza.”

Stan grunts again. It worked so well last time.

Rick doesn't go for the phone right away, though. Instead, he drops his bony ass down on the bed beside Stan, his little weight still making the mattress dip, and starts unzipping Stan's fly.

"Whoa, wh-" Stan starts, and Rick reaches over to grab the phone out of its cradle.

"Trust me, this is gonna be hil _uuuuuurp_ arious," he says, dialing with one hand while he eases Stan's dick out of his pants with the other. He passes the phone over to Stan, who has a sudden, vivid, technicolour vision of exactly where this is going.

“No way,” Stan says, reaching over to slam the phone back into its cradle, but a tinny voice speaks into his ear just as Rick wraps a warm, slick (Stan’s mind does a brief detour into wondering just when the hell he’d had a chance to lube up, and how long he’d been planning this) hand around Stan’s traitorously interested cock, and starts stroking it into hardness with a vicious grin.

“Hello, Tony’s Pizza Planet, what can I get you?”

“Hhhhhhhi,” Stan manages. “Can - uh, can I get - ah! - aw, _shit, Rick -"_ He has to stop, biting down on his lip and desperately trying to swallow down the moan that bubbles up his throat when Rick twists his wrist just _so._ "Ummm, two, ah, two pepperoni pies? _”_

The kid on the other end of the line just sighs.

...

The other thing about Rick was that he was easy to talk to. Sure, he’d act like he didn’t give a shit about most of Stan’s problems, but most of the time he’d actually sit there and let Stan talk, instead of just telling him to shut up and stop bothering him or trying to give him sanctimonious ‘advice’ to straighten up and fly right. When Stan admitted he didn’t have any plans beyond high school and wasn’t even sure he’d make it that far, Rick didn’t get on his case about pulling up his grades and applying to community colleges or trade schools that he’d never be able to afford anyway, didn’t tell Stan to start looking for barnacle-scraping jobs down the docks because he was gonna be doing it for a long time, might as well get some experience under his belt. Rick just took a long drag on the joint and passed it back to Stan with a curt “All of human history’ll be obliterated when this planet spirals into the sun in a co _uuuuhhhhhh_ uple hundred million years anyway, who gives a shit.”

“Right?” Stan said, taking a puff himself and settling back on the beat-up sofa they’d rescued from somebody’s curb and dragged back to the old cannery plant. Well, Stan had dragged, until Rick had thrown together some kind of gravity modifier thing that made the couch light enough for him to lift with one hand. “Wish everybody else’d get the memo.”

Rick nodded once, slow and languid.

“Like Ford,” Stan went on, taking another drag off the joint before handing it back. He couldn’t understand why anybody would’ve ever wanted to throw this couch away, it had to be the most comfortable piece of furniture ever made. “We got all these plans to fix up a boat and go treasure hunting together after high school, but now he’s so hung up on this stupid science fair, this stupid scholarship, this stupid...fucking...school -”

“West Coast Tech,” Rick interrupted, not looking at Stan. He had this look on his face, like he’d just bitten into something unexpectedly sour.

“West Coast fuckin’ Tech,” Stan repeated. He considered the rough edges of the piece of plywood propped on two milk crates that was serving as a coffee table for a moment, before deciding, “Fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Rick agreed, monotone. He stared, blank, at a spot in the air in front of Stan for a long moment before giving himself a sharp shake, kicking his feet up onto the plywood and leaning back on the sofa. “Your - your brother’s a real asshole.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Stan said, without any real heat. “He’s my brother, I’m the only one who gets to call him an asshole.”

Rick shrugged. “He is, though.”

Stan tilted his head back and forth until his neck cracked. “Yeah, whatever. You gonna smoke that, or just stare at it?”

Rick looked down at the joint he’d seemingly forgotten he was holding, and then met Stan’s gaze challengingly as he took what had to be the longest drag in history, the tip flaring cherry-red with embers.

“If - if your bitch-ass twin ditches, I’ll go treasure hunting with you,” he said, carelessly, into a cloud of exhaled smoke. “Gotta beat sitting in - in a shitty classroom for another four years.”

Stan had to swallow, hard, before he could make words. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rick passed over the joint. “We still got any wafer cookies in here?”

...

"Where were you?"

Stan dropped his duffel bag on the floor of the room he shared with his twin, studiously avoiding Ford's eyes. "Boxing practice. You know that."

"What I know is that you haven't been to a single practice since September." Ford shut the textbook he'd been poring over with a _snap_ , staring at Stan from the upper bunk. "Your coach didn't even know you're still enrolled."

Stan shrugged. "Is it so bad I want a little time to myself without Dad gettin' on my case about how lazy and useless I am?"

Ford's expression wavered, but only for an instant. "Except that I know you're not taking 'time to yourself'. You've been hanging around with Sanchez, haven't you?"

Stan didn't answer right away, ripping open the duffel bag and pulling out his gym clothes, furiously avoiding looking up at the sanctimonious expression he knew Ford would be wearing.

"So what?" he finally said, pulling out his boxing gloves and tossing them aside.

"So what? So I know you've been skipping classes too! And at this rate, you'll be held back -"

Stan shrugged, and Ford sputtered.

“Stanley, how can you be so cavalier about this? This is your future we’re talking about -”

“Yeah? _What_ future?”

The long breath Ford sucked in could have been exasperated or exhausted. Stan couldn’t tell, without looking at him, which it was.

“You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about. This - this _character_ is obviously a bad influence on you. Stanley, you don’t really believe - I mean, I know school’s been difficult for you, but if you just buckled down and applied yourself -”

Stan clenched a hand around the laces of his trainers, tossing them out of his duffel bag with what might’ve been too much force. “What are you, my mom?”

“No, you idiot! I’m your _brother,_ and I’m worried about you.” Stan couldn’t tell if the sudden sincerity in Ford’s voice was better or worse than the judgmental anger. Worse, he decided.

“Yeah? Well, sounds to me more like you’re worried about me getting held back and you having to watch your own back for once.” He dumped the rest of the contents of his bag out on the floor, giving it a shake for good measure. “At least I have friends.” One friend, his traitor brain reminded him, and Stan gave the bag one last, vicious shake. “Do you know where my deodorant went?”

Ford didn’t answer. The silence from over by the bunk beds went beyond simple ‘not talking’ into the chilly slopes of ‘not talking To You’. Stan realised, too late, that he’d taken it too far.

“Okay, I’m gonna go look in the bathroom,” he said, straightening up and heading for the door. He’d been expecting Ford to bluster about the mess he’d left on the floor, but there was still no sound from Ford’s side of the room.

Stan glanced back over his shoulder before he left the room, but Ford had buried his head back in his textbook.

...

The pizza guy, when he shows up, has the dead-eyed disappointed stare of someone who's seen the full range of human weirdness and is no longer surprised by any of it. He takes the handful of crumpled bills Stan hands him without a single shift in his expression, handing over the pizzas and walking away without a word. 

"Did - did you see his face?" Rick gasps, barely stifling laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, you're real fuckin' funny," Stan mutters. He can feel how red his face must be, cheeks burning.

"Hey, don't blame me for how - how loud you get when you're just getting a handjob."

“Yeah, well, when it’s _your_  hand,” Stan manages, despite the way his ears are burning. Rick snorts, snagging the top pizza off the stack of boxes Stan’s holding.

“Gaaaaaay.”

“Says the guy who had his hand down my pants half an hour ago.”

“Okay, just for that you don’t get any -” Rick cracks open the pizza box he’s holding, takes a sniff. “Pineapple? What - what - what kind of troglodyte puts _pineapple_  on a pizza?”

“Maybe you shoulda been the one to make that order, huh?” Stan says, and he can’t resist a smug grin. 

He instantly regrets it at the smile that creeps across Rick’s face.

“Maybe next time I will,” Rick says, and drops the ham and pineapple pizza back on top of the boxes in Stan’s hands. “Now give 'em here. One - one of these better be edible.”

...

The first time they'd kissed, they'd been hiding under the boardwalk from the owner of the pizza parlour they’d just swiped a pie from, laughing so hard Stan’s sides had started to hurt, sand and surf working their way through the butt of his jeans, leaving him itching and soggy. They’d been cramped and aching, curled up against one of the pilings, trying not to laugh too loud and give themselves away, dripping with grease and melted cheese as they’d stuffed their faces with their ill-gotten goods. It was the hottest day of the year so far, the impending summer hanging around like a promise, making the ex-marine life washed up under the pier stink and Stan sweat in his letterman’s jacket.

He’d been happier than he could remember having been in years.

They’d both held their breath for a moment as the pizza parlour owner had stomped past overhead yelling impossible threats, tension hunching Stan’s shoulders and making his last bite of three-cheese stick in his throat. He’d been all too aware of Rick’s wiry body pressed close against him, wound like a spring, his knee digging into the fleshy part of Stan’s leg. They'd sat like that a long moment after the threats to tie their ears together and then drop them both on opposite sides of a girder had faded into the distance, just sitting and listening to the bustle overhead and the gulls screeching over the midway and out above the water, Stan holding his breath and trying not to think about the heat radiating from Rick's leg where it was pressed against his own.

Then Rick had burst out laughing, yelling something defiant and triumphant and sprinkled with swears after the retreating pizza parlour owner, and Stan had looked over at the look on his face and the boney fist he was shaking at the long streaks of sunlight that slipped down between the boards of the boardwalk and the little string of melted cheese hanging off of his bottom lip and before he could stop himself Stan had leaned over and kissed him. Full on the lips.

Kissing Rick tasted like licking the proverbial ashtray, with a nice garnish of tomato sauce. He didn't move, going still and rigid beside Stan, and Stan realised too late what he'd just done.

"Shit," he muttered, pulling back and rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth, trying not to meet Rick's eyes. "Shit, I -"

"What - what the hell was that, Pines?"

Stan made some noncommittal noise, trying to turn it into a laugh, painfully aware that it wasn't working. His entire head felt like an oversized pimple, hot and red and just begging to be popped. But he could laugh this off, right? Rick pulled crazy stunts all the time to get a rise out of Stan, it wasn't - wasn't like this was any different -

" _This_ is how you kiss a dude," Rick sneered, and Stan didn't have time to process what was happening before Rick grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and mashed their faces together and _oh_. Oh. Okay.

They didn't come out from under the boardwalk until the sun was almost all the way down. No matter how hard, later, he brushed his teeth, Stan couldn't get the taste of cigarette ash out of his mouth.

...

“The science fair is today?”

Ford’s voice was clipped with impatience, cold and irritable. “ _Yes_ , Stanley. You’d know this if you ever bothered to be around for more than five minutes.”

For once, Stan didn’t rise to the obvious bait. “It’s really _today_?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“I know, I know!” Stan protested, raising both hands to stop Ford before he could launch into another tirade. “I just...kinda thought there was more time.”

Ford fixed him with a strange look, like he’d just been told something he’d always assumed was an apple was actually an orange. “I didn’t know you’d entered.”

“No, that’s not -” Stan shook his head. “Forget it. So, what, you need a ride?”

Ford looked like he wanted to push it, but instead, he just readjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Yes, please.”

Stan was just easing the Stanleymobile’s long nose into a parking spot by the gym doors when Ford spoke again. “Stan,” he said, like he was trying to get Stan’s attention, though he didn’t turn away from the window he’d been staring out of the whole drive. “You - you do remember that the scouts from West Coast Tech are going to be here today?”

Stan tucked the Stanleymobile in against the curb and killed the engine, staring out the windshield for a moment. 

“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Yeah, I remember.”

The engine ticked softly as it cooled. Somewhere to Stan’s right, Ford let out a breath that was almost a sigh.

“We’d better go in,” he said, the door handle creaking as he pushed it open.

Stan huffed, yanking the keys out of the ignition.

...

It’s a few misspent hours later that Stan finally forces himself to roll off the bed with the crack over it. 

“We’re gonna be sleeping in the car tomorrow night at this rate,” he grumbles, pawing through his wallet. The wad of bills they’d left Atlantic City with seems a lot thinner now.

From over on the bed, Rick shrugs one shoulder, glancing over at Stan for a moment before turning his attention back to the ceiling. “Maybe there’ll be fewer bedbugs.”

“Wait, what?” Stan whips back the tacky fake-Mexican-print cover and the bedspread on the bed nearest the door, stares hard at the slightly yellowed sheets, looking for black dots bouncing. “If you get bedbugs in my baby -”

He’s cut off by the sound of Rick’s laughter, awful and grating, and huffs out a breath of relief. “You _asshole_.”

“You - you love me,” Rick says, with a leering wink in Stan’s direction, and Stan huffs, rolling his eyes before turning abruptly back to their wad of cash.

“We’re gonna have to fill up before we hit the road again, and I think we got about enough for two more tanks of gas.” He riffles the bills with his thumb, tapping it against the palm of his opposite hand before tucking it back inside the back pocket of his jeans, draped over the chair by the desk. “That’s not gonna get us all the way to the Sunshine State.”

“We’ll think of something,” Rick says. Stan can feel his eyes on his back. “By which I mean _I’ll_  think of something, being the - the genius in this relationship.”

“Yeah, well, don’t count me out just yet,” Stan retorts, spinning around with his best huckster’s smile. “Still got a couple tricks up these sleeves.”

“ _What_ sleeves,” Rick says. It isn’t a question, more of a challenge.

“Oh, shut up,” Stan mutters, before crossing the room to make Rick do exactly that. With his mouth. 

...

Rick didn’t go up to the front of the gym to accept the giant, ugly purple ribbon and the trophy that the beaming science fair judge held up. In fact, when Stan looked around the gym, he didn’t see Rick’s telltale shock of blue hair anywhere at all. Probably why he hadn’t realised the guy was even entered. It wasn’t like he’d bothered to actually look at any of the other projects, anyway, beyond a derisive glance. Ford’s was the best of the lot, hands down. And Stan was only here for Ford anyway.

He kept looking, though. Anything was better than seeing the look on Ford’s face.

“Of course it would be Sanchez,” Ford muttered, on the way out to the car, the first words he’d spoken since the winner of the science fair had been announced. Stan risked a glance over at him, to see his fists clenched, jaw jutting in the way Stan knew meant Ford was grinding his back teeth together, and knew that the light over Ford’s desk was going to be on all night again. “No one else in this school could have put together a project that would have outstripped mine, no one else in this school could have stolen that scholarship out from under me - I thought you said your little _friend_  wasn’t entering!” he snapped, and Stan realised it was the first part of Ford’s tirade that he’d actually been meant to hear.

“I thought he wasn’t!” Stan shot back. There was something simmering low in his stomach, sick and hot and aching, and he threw the Stanleymobile’s door open with more force than he meant to.

Ford just plopped himself down in the passenger seat like he wanted to personally punish the leather upholstery with his butt, crossing his arms with a huff and staring out the window. Stan rolled his eyes, but sat down in the driver’s seat himself, slamming the door behind him.

“You don’t know he got the scholarship too,” he tried, as he started to ease the Stanleymobile out of his parking spot, and Ford whirled, his eyes blazing behind his glasses.

“Oh, don’t be such an idiot, Stanley,” he snapped, and Stan stomped on the brakes to keep from ploughing the Stanleymobile’s nose straight into the rear bumper of the car ahead of him. “Why would _West Coast Tech_  ever settle for second best? Not to mention that Sanchez’ project is right in line with their major research fields, they’re the number one institution in the world right now working on multi-dimensional paradigm theory...” He let out a hollow laugh, slumping back against his seat. “I’ll be lucky if they even bother to send me a rejection letter.”

Stan took a deep breath, checking over his shoulder before carefully inching the Stanleymobile out into the road. “Well, at least it’s not like you don’t got a backup plan, right? You and me, sun, sand, and surf, treasure and babes and really wild adventures...” He managed a grin from somewhere deep down just as Ford let out a deep, heartfelt groan.

“Stanley, I really don’t want to talk about this right now,” he muttered, pressing both hands against his forehead and dragging them up and through his hair. “I have to start working on finding a backup school, writing scholarship essays, finding a summer job, applying for loans...I don’t have time for childish daydreams right now.” He dropped his left hand into his lap, leaning the elbow of his right against the window. 

Stan didn’t think he was meant to hear Ford’s mumble of, “What is Dad going to think?”

Stan rolled through the four-way stop, trying hard to swallow around the lump that had grown in his throat.

...

“What the _fuck_.”

Rick looked up, and a brief flash of annoyance crossed his face before he flicked his cigarette butt to the asphalt, grinding it out with his toe. “Wh -”

Stan didn’t give him a chance to get the word out, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him against the rough brick of the wall. “You didn’t tell me you were entering the science fair!” Rick started to say something, his skinny noodle arms pushing at Stan’s chest, but Stan gave him another slam against the wall. “You didn’t tell me you were some kind of _super genius_!”

Rick gave his head a little shake before answering, like he was trying to knock a few cogs back into position. "What, you - you didn't actually think I was a dumbass like you?"

Stan barely resisted the urge to plant a fist right in the middle of Rick’s smug asshole face. "No! But I didn’t think you _cared_. I bet you just threw something together for the science fair the morning of for shits and giggles, right? Just for a laugh? Oh, let’s ruin that nerdy asshole Pines’ life, bet it’ll be _hilarious_?"

“Would you shut up? I didn’t enter the - the - the fucking _science fair_ ,” Rick sneered.

“Oh, yeah, my mistake, that’s how you won it, by not entering,” Stan snapped back. 

“Won -” Rick’s face went dark, and a flash of something sharp and cold shot through Stan, a sudden stab of fear despite the fact he easily weighed the same as two of Rick and had been taking boxing lessons since he was old enough to stand upright. “Fucking - Brewster - thinks he’s doing me some kind of fucking favour putting my name in for all this school shit -”

“Oh, yeah, the AP Physics teacher whose class you don’t even take put your project into the fair, not you. That sounds real convincing.” Stan gave Rick another shove, but it was halfhearted, halfassed. Rick’s expression didn’t even shift. “Maybe next time you oughta leave the lying to me.”

“Stan, I’m in - I’m in AP Physics,” Rick sighed. “I just - just went for the tests, it’s not like I don’t know it all already.” He shook his head, glaring at a patch of back-alley scrub bush just to Stan’s left. “Of course fucking Brewster’s fucking _impressed.”_

Stan bit down on his bottom lip. “Whatever. Maybe I’d buy that if your project wasn’t a goddamn portal to other dimensions. I don’t know what ‘multi-dimensional paradigm theory’ is, but -”

“- but _West Coast Tech_  is the big name in it,” Rick finished for him, rolling his eyes. “Even though they’re - they’re at least two decades behind the times - ” He gave his head a shake. “How the fuck did Brewster even get his hands on my portal gun plans anyway? That - that thing’s nowhere near the prototype stage - unless my _dad -”_

“Save it,” Stan interrupted. “I dunno how stupid you think I am, but I’m not this thick. I’m out. Find some other dumbass to be your sidekick."

He gave Rick one more shove, before letting him go and walking away.

“Fine,” Rick called after him, like he was trying to sound casual but failing, his voice rising the longer Stan failed to turn around. “Like - like I need some stupid fag hanging around getting his - his - his stupid feelings in my way anyway. Maybe I’ll take that West Coast Tech scholarship and you can stay here and - and suck _Stanford Pines’_ dick instead! Does - does it matter whose it is, so long as you’ve got one in your - in your - in your stupid fat mouth?”

Stan didn’t look back, just flipped Rick off and kept walking.

...

Stan doesn’t snore. He doesn’t care what Rick says. The guy’s only actually spent the night with him, what, twice before their little road trip? He doesn’t get to talk.

Rick, though. Rick definitely snores. Rick snores like it’s a competition and he’s determined he’s gonna win. 

The glowing red display on the clock on the nightstand is blinking 07:38. It’s been blinking that, Stan realises, the whole time they’ve been here. He has no idea what time it is, and he’s not getting up now to find his watch. Rick might snore like he’s trying to wake the dead, but he’s also impossible to actually get to sleep and wakes up at the sound of a pin dropping. If Stan tries to work his arm out from under Rick’s five whole pounds of body weight, Rick’s gonna be up for the rest of the night and probably be the crankiest asshole this side of Texas all day tomorrow. Stan can’t deal with that shit while he’s driving.

So he lies, in the slightly-too-warm cocoon of the covers, distinctly aware of the sweat pooled under his arms and in the small of his back, of the press of Rick’s ribs against the fleshy underside of his left arm, of the sound of his breathing in the motel quiet, of the occasional flash of light and speeding shadow puppetry on the wall in front of him when the headlights of some passing car on the freeway filter through the skimpy curtains. Stan tries to take deep, slow, even breaths. He wishes he could turn the TV on without waking Rick. If he doesn’t sleep tonight, he’s gonna be useless to drive tomorrow.

It’s weird, though, trying to sleep without the soft sounds of breathing from the bunk overhead.

Stan squeezes his eyes shut, presses his face into the back of Rick’s neck, and tries, again, to take slow, deep, even breaths.

...

The worst part was the quiet.

Life above Pines Pawns was _never_  quiet, of course, with Stan and Ford’s ma always on the phone with the rubes, but even she seemed to be toning it down. Stan and Ford’s pa, never all that talkative at the best of times, was acting like none of the rest of the family were even there. And Ford - 

Ford looked up from the books strewn across his desk exactly once, when Stan opened the door to their room, scowled, and then turned abruptly back to the page he’d been staring at. Stan noticed that the pile of hardcover, brick-thick textbooks around him looked like it’d doubled.

He didn’t ask if Ford’s eyes had got so red from staring so hard at the textbook or from crying. 

“Dad seems...quiet,” he said, instead, lamely, dropping onto his bed. “What, did I just miss all the fireworks?”

Ford didn’t respond, didn’t even turn around.

Stan glanced off to his right, puffing out a breath. He didn’t really know what he’d expected. “Look, Rick’s an asshole.”

“Do you think I don’t know that, Stanley?” The words came out tight and controlled, like Ford was making them as quiet as he could to keep from yelling. 

Stan shuffled back further onto the bed, kicking off his sneakers before he kicked both feet up onto the bedspread. “If there’s anything I can do to help -”

“You’ve done more than enough already.” The words came out like bullets, each one hurled at the wall Ford was facing. Stan didn’t even have time to open his mouth to snap back before Ford was heaving out a sigh. “Honestly, Stanley, I need to work twice as hard to prove myself if I’m going to impress any other schools into taking me, now that I already have a rejection from West Coast Tech under my belt. And for that, I need to be able to concentrate.” 

He finally turned to face Stan, and Stan felt something sink into the pit of his stomach like a bowling ball even before Ford opened his mouth and said, “The best thing you can do for me right now is leave me alone.”

...

Carla wasn’t around when Stan stopped by the skate park. Her long-haired boyfriend glared him down, so he kept walking, hands in his pockets, whistling a little like he didn’t give a shit anyway.

Rick wasn’t up at the cannery plant. Which was good. It wasn’t like Stan even wanted to see his bitch ass.

None of the guys were hanging around the machine shop, and it was too early for the boardwalk to be any fun, all little kids high on too much grease and sugar running around screaming and their parents desperately running after them. Stan bought a bag of fries from one of the food stands and went and sat on one of the benches anyway. He ended up feeding most of his fries to a seagull that kept hanging around. By the time the bag was finished off, the seagull was practically sitting in his lap.

“Maybe I could be a seagull trainer,” Stan said, to its beady eye. “Think anybody’s ever put together a seagull circus before?”

The seagull didn’t answer. It pecked curiously at the empty paper bag in Stan’s hand, translucent with grease, and then, finding no more fries, grabbed the bag and took off with a flap of its wings that nearly hit Stan in the face.

...

It was nearly a week before Stan heard from Rick again.

The first pebble hit the window of Stan and Ford’s room with a dull, faintly melodious _thwonk_ , startling Stan out of a dream he’d been having about some kind of British dog-man and a duck that was somehow the dog-man’s brother? And a detective? Some kinda nonsense, anyway.

He thought for a moment that the noise had just been part of the dream, until another pebble rattled against the window and Stan was instantly wide awake.

It took two more pebbles before he stuck his head out the window to see Rick standing down on the street, one hand shoved in his pocket like he was daring anybody who might pass by to think he was anything but totally relaxed and casual, the other winding up to throw another pebble. Stan opened up the window just in time for Rick to let it fly. The pebble bounced off Stan’s forehead and fell back towards the street, making Stan’s head twinge.

“What the hell?” he whisper-yelled down at Rick, before spinning to check if Ford had heard him. Thankfully, Ford was passed out across his textbooks at his desk, where he’d been sitting studying when Stan had gone to bed. His desk lamp was still on.

“I told West Coast Tech to go fuck themselves,” Rick called softly up from the street, and Stan’s attention was wrenched back down to the street. “Bunch of - of - of boring old cocksuckers. Like they can teach _me_  anything.”

“What?” Stan asked.

“I - I - I told ‘em to take their stupid scholarship and shove it right up their collective ass!” Rick said, and Stan shushed him, looking back over his shoulder in Ford’s direction. “Fuck ‘em. Who - who actually _wants_  to spend all of their formative years in - in - in some kind of human cattle pen? School is for - for dweebs like your asshole brother.”

“Rick,” Stan started, but Rick interrupted with another pebble to Stan’s face. “Ow! What the _fuck_?”

“Get your ass down here, we’re leaving,” Rick called up. “If - if you’re not down here with all your shit in ten minutes, I’ll find some other lovesick idiot with a car.” 

“ _What_?”

Ford made some soft noise from behind Stan, and Stan froze, holding his own breath until he heard Ford start breathing the slow and steady breaths of a sleeper again.

“You - you h _uuuurp_ eard me,” Rick shouted. “Fuck ‘em! Fuck your shitty schools, fuck your shitty family, fuck ‘potential’, fuck what everybody else wants! Treasure hunting, Pines! Some of your ideas don’t - don’t _totally_ suck balls. You’re not getting me out on the ocean on - on - on a fucking boat that _your_  dumb ass repaired, though.”

Stan couldn’t speak, for a long moment. 

“Rick,” he started, around the lump sitting hot and inconvenient somewhere around his lungs.

“Yeah, yeah. Move it or lose it,” Rick called back up, then turned and vanished around the side of the pawn shop.

It didn’t take Stan any time to throw a bag together. It wasn’t like he owned all that much worth taking, anyway. He threw in a few pairs of jeans, t-shirts, a jacket, his wallet and the contents of the little jar he’d been saving change in for dates, another pair of sneakers, his boxing gloves. He debated a moment, then slipped the family photo on the nightstand out of its frame, folding it carefully and sliding it into his wallet.

He paused, a moment, watching Ford’s back rise and fall, the rhythm steady, peaceful. 

Then Stan grabbed the blanket off the top bunk and draped it carefully around Ford’s shoulders, before hoisting his duffel bag over one shoulder and slipping carefully out of their shared room. 

He made sure to shut the door silently behind him.

...

Stan must’ve gotten to sleep somehow, because the next thing he knows, he’s waking up to sunlight streaming yellow through the open window and Rick throwing their shit back into their bags.

Twenty minutes later, they’re back on the road, speeding up and over the cloverleaf. Stan’s pretty sure they’re never going to be allowed to stay at that motel again, considering they left the room full of pizza garbage and skipped out on the bill. He can’t bring himself to care much. He really, really hopes he’s stayed overnight in Ohio for the last time.

“We’re gonna have to stop somewhere for gas,” he says, peering at the green sign hanging over the roadway, trying to pick out the sign for their exit. “Maybe we can make it over the border first, though.”

“And we’re - we're stopping at the next Shoney’s we see,” Rick says. “I’m not going anywhere today without waffles. Hey, dipshit, our - our exit’s on the right.”

“I knew that,” Stan says, swerving into the right lane.

“Put on your fucking glasses,” Rick grumbles. Stan flips him off.

The sun pours hot through the Stanleymobile’s windows, air conditioning rattling as it gamely spits odd blasts of freezing air out the vents in the dash, until Stan can barely feel his fingers on the steering wheel even though there’s sweat dripping down his neck. Some shitty rock song is playing softly on the radio, and Rick cranks the volume up, kicking one foot up on the dash and playing air guitar as he sings nasally along to the guitar solo. The sky ahead is a perfect, crystal blue, stretching from horizon to horizon.

There’s only thirty-two hours of driving between them and California.


End file.
